The Death of Google Authorship – No Big Deal
On Thursday Aug, 28th, 2014 I came into Wealthy Affiliate to do what I do every Thursday, to update my website with new content. After I published the content I do what I always do; go to Google Webmaster Tools and do a “Fetch as Google” and submit my pages to index. Then I will check the status of my pages posted in the two weeks prior.
Upon doing that I noticed that my Google Authorship byline was missing from all of my content. Did Google make yet another change to Authorship? So I went up on Google Plus to one of the G+ Communities I belong to and sure enough there was several posts about the death of Google Authorship. So I clicked on the link from a trusted source within the community from the website Search Engine Land. Read the full article at the end of this blog post below.
DID YOU SEE THE SIGNS?
I started at Wealthy Affiliate in Aug. 2013 and when I learned about Authorship I was excited, just as I am sure all of you were too. I joined a couple of Google communities on Google+ to learn even more than what I was learning here. Then in October 2013 two of the first signs of the demise of Google Authorship happened.
Matt Cutts at Pubcon announced that Authorship images were being cut by 15% across the board. For those of you who were here back then you may remember the mass confusion people were having, not me though, about their authorship images disappearing. I even wrote a couple of blog posts about it. I personally never had a Rich Snippet photo ever appear on my content but it was no big deal because I had good rankings and click-through rates.
Those cuts in the Authorship images were the first sign and the other one in October was that Othar Hansson, then head of the Authorship project at Google, left and went to work on the Google Android Team. Between October 2013 and June 2014 Google was performing search marketing tests and we were all part of that test. Their data showed that Authorship Images made little difference in the click behavior on search results.
So now Google knew that they could get rid of the pictures all together and it would not have that big of a negative impact if at all. Personally I was glad to see them go. There was a lot of crappy content out there on the internet by people with Authorship photos, plus it evens the playing field. Now it comes down to your content that will set you apart because as always, “Content is King!” It has always been the creation of your content that has determined Google rankings and not Google Authorship.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE?
That being said Google realizes that Author Authority is important and they have stated so many times in the past but in the form Authorship was in, it was not working. So until Google can integrate it in a more efficient way, Authorship is going to remain gone. Will Authorship come back at some point in the future? Some are saying yes but nothing as big as what we have come to know, but rather something more subtle and/or behind-the-scenes coding.
Should you be worried or upset about this news? Absolutely not! Losing Google Authorship will not affect Google Rankings. It was mainly a search engine tool that was meant to increase awareness to your search posts. However if you had an Authorship photo and your listing was on Google page 5 it was a definite fact that you were not getting much awareness and people with no photo on page 1 were getting much more. This is why getting on Page 1, or as close to it as possible, is very important.
To read more about the history of Authorship, why Google shut down Authorship, and what it may mean for the future, read the full news breaking story at the link below. If you have any questions you can leave them below and I will get back to you probably tomorrow. I have a hiking date with a section of the Appalachian Trail I need to get to this morning. Have a great Labor Day Weekend people!
http://searchengineland.com/goodbye-google-authorship-201975
Recent Comments
84
Hello Robert, I knew you would spend time to WA on your holiday, and I really understand that, thanks for your info, have a nice continuation of your vacation, greetings Loes
It was too hot a topic to not set people straight on. Besides I am still enjoying my vacation because I posted this and then went on a day excursion up in the mountains of New York.
Thank you very much for that clarifications. I saw the sign yesterday I didn't bother I thought something was wrong and that Google will fix it in no time.
I am glad you came to my rescue. Some news are saying they will replace it with..... something I forgot the name. But it is okay after this great explanation.
Enjoy your day.
Google did fix it...they finally got rid of it. :)
It didn't do everything it was originally intended to do, so instead of fixing all of the problems it was better to get rid of it all.
I would have liked for them to fix the problems than getting rid of it you know.
But anyway, what can we do? have a beautiful day.
Thanks for this reassurance, I've actually stopped chasing for this a while ago, after my authorship disappeared from one of my blogs. I'm happy with my ranking though.
It used to amaze me Jen when people would be wrestling to get Authorship to work and then getting upset about it. They should be worried more about their content and Google rankings. Authorship has nothing to do with either of those but for some reason many people couldn't understand that. Now maybe they finally will.
Then consider yourself smart because knowing about the ending of Google Authorship is nothing to really be aware of in the first place. :)
Happy Labor Day Weekend to you, too, Robert! And thanks for the great, comprehensive explanation. Great graphics, too!
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Thanks Robert!
You are welcome.